Barack Obama’s new ethnic majority

‘I’ve come back to Iowa one more time to ask for your vote,’ said President Obama at an emotional ‘last ever’ campaign meeting. ‘Because this is where our movement for change began, right here. Right here.’ And his eyes briefly moistened. The nostalgia was doubtless sincere, and the address correct, but it was misleading to describe his 2012 election campaign as a continuation of his earlier ‘movement for change’. In reality, it has been a smoothly ruthless operation to distract attention from a record that has been disappointingly bereft of change. He triumphed over himself as much as over the hapless Mitt Romney.

Until it produced a glossy economic leaflet so that the President could wave it as evidence that, like Romney, he too had a ‘plan’, the Obama campaign had concentrated on blaming George W. Bush for America’s continuing troubles. It denounced Romney as a vulture capitalist murderously hostile to ordinary people, and promised to protect women against the GOP’s supposed plan to abolish both contraception and abortion. Both sides ran relentlessly negative adverts but, as the result showed, the Democrats did it better. Obama will be President for another four years.

To win in circumstances that seemed ripe for his defeat is a remarkable achievement — but the victory can scarcely be described as glorious. The President almost tied with Romney (whom he reportedly despises) in the popular vote. The loss of Senate seats had little to do with his coattails but was largely due to the individual follies or bad luck of Republican candidates. Republicans retained control of the House and now control 30 governorships, the highest number since 2000. The President will have to deal with a hostile half of Congress in an atmosphere poisoned by the extraordinarily ruthless partisanship of this ‘post-partisan’. And in one vital particular, the campaign almost foundered.

Back in 2008, when Obama was beginning his movement for change in Iowa, he gave an interview to the Reno Gazette-Journal, in which he declared that ‘Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not… He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it.’ The implication that a future President Obama would succeed where Clinton had failed was clear. But how did Obama propose to change that trajectory?

As it happens, the trajectory has been changing of its own accord, thanks to what William Frey of the Brookings Institution refers to as the Democrats’ best friend: demography. America is ‘browning’, as Frey puts it, as a result of high immigration levels from Latin America and Asia and the fact that an older white population is having fewer children than immigrants and their children. (If talk of ‘browning’ and ‘white decline’ makes you uneasy, please relax. It’s perfectly respectable in American politics, provided you don’t suggest that there’s anything wrong with such trends.)

A glance at the CNN exit polls shows why this matters. Romney had a 20-point lead among white voters, but among ethnic minorities his defeat was emphatic. Obama won by 44 points among Latinos, 47 points among Asians and 87 points among African-Americans. A Republican party that relies upon white votes is a Republican party that ought to be anxious about its future. That is not to endorse the immediate response of most commentators that ‘comprehensive’ immigration reform is the obvious solution to the party’s problems. The final tipping point will not happen for some decades, but the Census Bureau has pointed to one intermediate point: for the first time, whites represented a minority of all births (49.6 per cent).These trends were forecast as early as 1997, in a National Review article called ‘The Emerging Democratic Majority’ — a theme and a title that were later adopted by Democrats John Judis and Ruy Teixeira for an influential 2002 book. Several commentators predicted that some time in the first decade of this century the Republicans would lose the natural majority Reagan had created for them. The old model would suddenly stop working. That arguably happened when Obama was first elected, but the trends have accelerated since then and a natural Democratic majority has almost emerged.

It isn’t, of course, that simple. Although whites are declining as a percentage of the population, they will remain for some time the big enchilada electorally — 72 per cent of voters according to exit polls. A third of Hispanics in America are under 18 and can’t vote until 2016 at the earliest. The electoral overwhelming of the white majority may not have the effect that simple extrapolation suggests. Most Hispanics are white. Intermarriage is creating mixed and non-racial identities that further confuse ethnic categories. One effect could be an electorate that votes less and less along ethnic lines.

It was a bold decision for the Obama campaign to pitch a radical social appeal to ethnic minorities, young people and single women — without worrying that the religious right or other groups might be offended. This, in effect, risked losing the 2012 election with a campaign designed for 2020. But the gamble was vindicated on election night when the exit polls showed these targeted groups voting disproportionately for the President.

Romney and Republicans faced an equally tricky decision. If their support among minorities was low and even falling, then they had to compensate by getting a larger share of the white vote — especially the white working-class vote which is alienated from the Democrats and (everywhere in the English-speaking world) moving from left to right. A back-of-envelope calculation suggested that Romney needed rather more than 60 per cent of whites to give him an overall victory.

Appealing to these votes was always going to be a hard task for Romney. As a venture capitalist and the head of Bain Capital, he was exactly the wrong sort of Republican to win over blue-collar workers. His Mormon temperance and personal stiffness early on scarcely helped. And his opposition to Obama’s bailout of General Motors, though principled, threatened the economic interests of the very workers he was trying to win over.

Even if Romney could have overcome these personal drawbacks, he and all other Republicans confronted a more intangible but still formidable obstacle. Making specifically ethnic appeals to Hispanic, black or Asian constituencies is an everyday event in American politics and entirely respectable; appealing to whites as an ethnic group is not. He might have criticised affirmative action quotas. He might, indeed, have called for immigration restrictions, and flirted with doing so in the primaries. But both such appeals might have distressed the Midwest suburban voters who were coming over to the GOP. So Romney contented himself with making a general appeal to all Americans on rescuing the economy from Obama’s failed policies.

Polls showed that whites were breaking for Romney so decisively that Bill Clinton was summoned to help Obama prevent the last-minute defection of previously safe Democratic strongholds such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. In the final hectic days of the campaign, a tired and hoarse but still vigorous ex-president criss-crossed what had suddenly become three or four ‘swing’ states on the east coast and in the Midwest. It was an old-fashioned street hustings climax to a campaign more often fought with television ads and social media.

It worked. Romney got only 59 per cent of the white vote and, accordingly, he lost narrowly. Clinton gave the kiss of life to Obama’s ailing ambition. The President phoned to thank him immediately after Romney’s concession, which must have been a bittersweet occasion for Clinton.

What now? The trajectory of American politics towards a natural Democratic majority will continue to be strengthened by the election. America now looks like a less naturally conservative country, more a centre-left one. Between them, Clinton and Obama have helped demography along. As these trends gain traction, however, they will provoke and aggravate a new clash in American politics.

The coming majority implies a different set of political priorities for the US government. A younger, poorer, less self-reliant electorate, rooted mainly in minority communities, is likely to demand a larger welfare state, greater regulation, more unionisation, higher government spending and higher taxes, initially ‘on the rich’. These demands will run counter to the interests of older Americans of all races, who are currently the main beneficiaries of high spending and low taxes. And the claims of both will inevitably be noticed by the watchful interests of the international investing community and America’s creditors such as China.

An irresistible political force is about to meet an immovable economic object — on the edge of a vertiginous fiscal cliff.

This is John O’Sullivan’s cover feature from this week’s Spectator, which is out tomorrow. You can subscribe to The Spectator here.

Obama “almost tied” with Romney in the popular vote. No he didn’t. He won it, and the election. This is just sour grapes.

indianajohn

The changing demographics will work against the Republicans as long as they continue to be the party of bigotry.

stephengreen

So Republican must be more like Democrats and must supposedly wear a hair shirt to try to encourage the 93% of Africans and the over 70% of Hispanics and Asians who have just voted for Obama, to consider Republicans?

Actually all they needed to do was control their borders and as Jared Taylor has ably recently outlined that percentage of the European vote would have guaranteed them election in any other era.

stephengreen

Mr O’Sullivan in a brief snip on the National Review website, that tipped me to this article is actually much more straightforward and less ‘sophisticated’ than the outline he gives here.

Regarding the exogamy (intermarriage) briefly detailed above he says “I don’t repent of this view. I think it is possible and I hope it is the path we take.” as an alternative scenario, he pinpoints a “darker possibility” where the “possibility is that whites will develop a defensive minority consciousness in response both to their statistically weaker position.”

So, in sum, he hopes the response to the minoritisation of defensive Europeans within the US demographic will be to become a wider Mestizo people rather than to attempt to retain their ethnic identity as Europeans and any economic advantages this may bring with it.

The utter defeatism and to be frank, evil, inherent in this point of view, should hopefully be discernible for anyone who holds any semblance of a conservative viewpoint. For it will not be that long before those who hope to speak to us on similar questions in Europe start to formulate similar arguments.

anyfool

You write,
What now? The trajectory of American politics towards a natural Democratic majority will continue to be strengthened by the election.

This will continue till all the money to pay for their fantasies is gone or the immigrants start to generate their own income or wealth, if they do they will stop voting Democrat and if they don’t when the bribery stops they will will stop voting or move to the next available state so as to continue their lifestyle.

BARMOUTH FAN

Sean Trende, elections analyst at realclearpolitics.com, has written an article in which he finds that the difference with 2008 was in white voters not turning out. He finds this in working class areas.
His hypothesis is that they weren’t prepared to vote for Obama and were put off by the negative ads v Romney and his failure to articulate an agenda for them.
He has had years of experience and is the senior analyst for the ‘go-to’ US politics,etc website. His argument needs to be confronted before there is another ‘death in the demographics’ theory going unchallenged.

When the pResident can govern by Executive Order (close to 700 in the
past four years) and by bureaucratic fiat (think about the new EPA regs
which will probably have the same effect as Cap and Trade), and fund
whatever he wants funded using Continuing Resolution authority like the
past four years with no budget, and print money by agreement with the
Fed, unrestrained in all these activities by the Congress and
unchallenged before the Supreme Court, …when the only threat against
him is an Impeachment in the House that would never see the light of Day
in Harry Reid’s Senate, he doesn’t NEED a mandate…he’s got the
presidential pen. This is entirely unconstitutional, but, he’s going
to play “stop me if you can”….knowing we really can’t.

the viceroy’s gin

…and why WOULDN’T he do all that? His opposition sent up Willard the Mittens to run against him. A lying progressive crapweasel. And he lost.

Why would Obama worry about an opposition that’s too stupid to send up a qualified candidate to run against him?

stephengreen

First McCain, then Romney. Consistent stupidity. Perhaps.

Charlie the Chump

The only thing that will save the US, the UK and Europe is growth. High taxes, high benefits spending and over regulation will inhibit growth.
The entitlements culture is about to receive a sever shock.

A. Jamie Saris

As an American living in Europe, it’s hard to know how to undo the numerous misrepresentations and partial truths contained this article. First and foremost, this was not a close election — if Florida stays in the Obama column (and it looks like it will), it is a decisive Electoral College victory (120+ votes) for Obama, while his popular margin has widened beyond 2%. Given how early the election was called in the US, the popular vote margin might have been even larger, as some west coast Obama voters probably didn’t bother to come out after work, as early returns showed Pennsylvania going for Obama, which more or less made Romney’s Electoral College math impossible. On the other hand, if Romney had won the election with Obama’s numbers, then the conservative press in the US would be talking about a historic mandate and the decisive rejection of Obama’s legacy (as indeed would the Spectator).

The demographic argument is also much more complex than O’Sullivan makes it. The genius of the Republican strategy for the past 40 years has been to get less-educated working class whites to vote themselves into economic oblivion by waving cultural-war red flags in front of them (gay marriage, female reproductive rights, gun ownership, and immigration being the big ones), while largely not delivering on “dealing” with these issues. That strategy still seems to mobilize Angry White Males in very large numbers every two years, but there simply is not enough of them anymore. What’s missing above, however, is any understanding of class. With only a hint of humor, one could say that economically-optimistic working class Latinos are now numerous enough and voting in large enough numbers to start to save economically-despairing working class whites from themselves. The White plurality in the US (really the less-educated White Male part of it) may well become less angry as basic social safety nets secure them and the economy picks up. Already White women, younger White voters and college-educated White voters track marginally to moderately Democrat nationally, with only older Whites (65+ being strongly Republican nationally). Meanwhile, some of the hot-button culture war issues, such as the appeal to homophobia, have clearly run their course (two States approved gay marriage this time around, almost certainly more will do so in next few years), and the hammering that the Republicans took on restricting reproductive rights this election is unlikely to be forgotten by Republican strategists any time soon. If Republicans are forced into supporting some kind of immigration reform, then it’s just gun rights left — a big winner in the fly-over states, but not a decisive issue outside of them.

It seems to me that there are two possibilities, a much more centrist Republican party that competes for Latinos and educated Whites and drops most of its culture war rhetoric or a purified “Tea Party” Republican party, which slowly concedes once ‘red’ states to demographic and education changes. Both are fraught strategies, and both leave issues like social mobility and inequality wholly to the Democrats. This is not a happy picture for the GOP, but it points to a much more fundamental problem in the future.

the viceroy’s gin

And you’re off as well.

You start off saying it’s not about race, and then finish off saying it’s all about race.

Just as an fyi, the “Latino” population you’re so obsessed with mostly exist in the Southern states, and mostly in California. California is going bankrupt, and the rest of us are just waiting it out, while the Left destroys the state. It won’t be long now.

If you’re sitting around waiting for skin pigmentation to save the Left, you’ll be waiting a long while. Texas, Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and all the rest of the Southern states don’t appear to be responding to your fixation with skin pigmentation, politically, economically or otherwise.

A. Jamie Saris

I am not sure how ending a comment stating the GOP has to compete for educated Whites and Latinos make my comment to be about “race” (perhaps ‘races’), but OK.

Look at it this way: Romney’s camp spent literally billions of dollars and won one “battleground” state, North Carolina, a place that was so reliably Republican for the last 40 years that the GOP would never have considered investing serious money in it in a national contest unless a white southerner was heading the Dem ticket (while the wingnuts place Obama’s birth all over the globe, I have yet to see a conspiracy theory that makes him out to be a White Southerner). FL looks to be slightly Dem nowadays — a huge issue for the GOP, as without it, there is practically no feasible Electoral College Path to the White House. TX won’t turn Blue anytime soon, but it is likely to become purple in the next eight years requiring serious national money to keep it in the R column. I agree it is not a matter of race. There is, instead, a reinvigorated coalition based on what politics should be about — class and economic interests — and the Southern Strategy, a coalition of increasingly economically disenfranchised whites (rallying to culture war issues) allied to a core of the economically privileged (getting economic policies passed favoring accumulated wealth), is at the end of its demographic rope for the GOP (O’Sullivan is more or less correct there).

My point is that there in no Plan B for the GOP. Conservative religious folks of color do not seem to be electorally homophobic and anti-reproductive rights for women in the way that White Evangelicals seemingly are. Maryland, for example, has a large African-American working class demographic and the Marriage Rights amendment there went through pretty easily. The GOP is very likely going to agree to some form of Immigration Reform, but this will be so obviously imposed on them that it is unlikely, in itself, to make them more appealing to new citizens, AND it will certainly enrage and then demoralize its current Tea Party majority. If anything, the GOP’s strategy since Nixon has been overtly demographic (tacking very close to the wind on being racist, and often unabashedly homophobic and more than a little misogynistic) to appeal to their understanding of White Males. It’s very unclear after decades of this strategy (while supporting economic policies that make it more and more difficult for such folks to aspire to a decent living) that they will be able to morph into something else.

the viceroy’s gin

Dude, you’re fixated on skin pigmentation for skin pigmentation’s sake, in addition to all the other demographic portions you’re fixated upon.

No conservative will join you in your obsessions. They’ll continue on with the US House shellackings, and seek a conservative for the 2016 WH run. And that will give them the influence they seek within the political process.

Curnonsky

“As the economy picks up”? You will be waiting a long time for that, friend. The Euro-style entitlement state without fail leads to economic stagnation, high structural unemployment and capital flight. Followed by a progressive loss of freedom (there is this country called Greece…)

A. Jamie Saris

Any acquaintance with the world outside of the Team America DVD would disabuse you of these notions. Social Democratic countries with good entitlements and well-regulated markets (Sweden, Norway, Germany, among others) weathered the economic crisis of ’08 much better than those adhering to the Anglo-American model. By any measure, from infant mortality rates and life expectancy through moderating inequalities, these societies rank as better places to live that the US. Indeed, European countries that took the American model to heart (Ireland, where I currently live, being a prime example) were the most severely affected by the collapse of casino capitalism and still have not recovered. Greece is a sort of special case as Lehman Brothers effectively cooked the books for the elite there for years before going belly up. Greece’s entitlements are very meager by EU standards, in any case.

What can one say about a statement like the “progressive loss of freedom” except, perhaps, you might want to withdraw the statement so you don’t look so utterly foolish. No European (EU) country has anything like the Patriot Act or incarcerates upwards of 3% of its population in its prisons and jails (indeed the more entitlements seemingly the smaller the prison system). No European (EU) country reserves the right to assassinate its citizens without trial under the justification of national security, as the US does. The list goes on. Of course, the topper is that, if the US was such a bastion of economic liberty, then why did Romney bank in the Cayman Islands for decades? Such realities render American society pretty immune to satire.

There is a place called ‘the world’ — you might want to become a little more familiar with it …

Curnonsky

You cite countries which avoided the downturn because they didn’t fall prey to government-induced asset bubbles, such as Ireland and the US did. It had nothing to do with their devotion to statism. Although perhaps by your standards North Korea weathered the storm in fine fettle thanks to their enlightened policies. And if you are looking for examples of a society which has willingly exchanged freedom for handouts, look no further then the UK which now jails citizens for what they write, say and (shortly, no doubt) think. But outside of the glum, self-sacrificing Nordic countries you cite the social welfare state always runs into the same problem: who pays? There comes the tipping point where the strivers cannot or will not support the takers, and that is where the men in trench coats enter. Amazingly, the American electorate has voted to head down the same path even as Europe sinks beneath the quicksand, but then demagoguery works even if socialism doesn’t.

Augustus

The primary issue is not race. It’s outlook. You have basically two types of people, when considered in the context of electoral politics. One wants to do, and wants to be left alone to do it. The other wants to get, not in the traditional American sense of pursuing happiness, but to have goodies to which one is entitled, and provided for by others. Since the welfare/entitlement state began in earnest, back in the 1930s, the trend has been consistent and steady. Ignore the periods of exception or backing off the trend, such as when Eisenhower or Reagan were President. These periods were the exception, not the norm. They did not represent the steady direction the country was taking, even at those times.

Before Obama, presidential elections were usually decided by the state of the economy. This is because most people, before Obama, wanted a thriving economy above all else. But things have changed. The fact that Obama – an open redistributer of wealth – won the first time was an indication that perhaps something had changed in American society. Was it the economic panic in 2008, or was it something deeper? The key was to see if he won re-election, or not. Particularly in a bad economy, by the old standards, Obama was doomed to lose in 2012 – even in a landslide, as Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan back in 1980. Instead, Obama won. Before 2012, this would not have been possible in America. At the end of the day, a majority would never have voted back into office a President presiding over such a lousy economy. Obama himself, back in 2009, predicted he would not be a two-term President if the economy didn’t appreciably improve. The economy did not appreciably approve. Yet Obama won anyway.

Obama obviously has great gratitude and regard for his supporters, and they will no doubt be rewarded. But how much respect do you really think he has for a population who re-elected him, even in defiance of his own prediction three years earlier? The electorate of America now cares more about being cared for than about having the freedom to care for themselves. But let’s be honest, Mitt Romney could never have saved America. Nor could have any of his rivals. Nobody can save Americans from themselves, because a decreasing number of productive, self-responsible and wealth-producing people are expected to provide more and more goodies for them. So now we know what the future holds. Half the country is in some form committed to freedom and individual rights, and half committed to the “freedom” to have what they want, actually or potentially provided by others. America’s downfall hasn’t just occurred because Obama won. Obama won because America’s downfall had already begun.

Charlie the Chump

Great post. You cannot have massive benefits spending and growth and growth is the key to a sustainable economy.

the viceroy’s gin

Nope, sorry, but you’re off.

Obama won because Willard is a doofus, and never should have been nominated.

Curnonsky

Spot on. America has caught a fatal case of the European Disease, from which there is no recovery.

Raman_Indian123

You forget that when Obama came in the economy was in free flight with hundreds of thousands of jobs being lost every month. He caught the economy in midflight and got it growing again. This was a colossal, life-saving achievement and the electorate are smart enough to realise it. They are also clever enough to know that when someone has crashed the car into a ditch and someone else has managed to get it back on the road you do not hand the driving wheel to the first guy when he hollers: “It ain’t going fast enough!”
Geddit?

Aidan

Let’s not also forget the help and assistance that MSM has given to Obama. They’ve turned a blind eye to issues that would have pulled curtains on most and all GOP candidates. As far as fair, balanced and accurate reporting is concerned; US media is now totally compromised. And not just during this campaign, journalists have been known to lob softball questions at Obama on the few occasions he’s attended WH press conferences. And everybody knows this, but you know what, people want it this way, they want US media to become the voice of Obama (and Democrats), they want GOP politicians to be portrayed as loopy, deranged, racists monkeys. The only way GOP can now win an election is to go left of Obama. We are witnessing the maturing of the beginning of the end of US that started with the Iran hostage situation under Carter and picked up after the 9/11 and is now in its stride since Obama’s first victory.

Biggestaspidistra

If it’s the minorities that elected Obama, how come he won in Vermont and New Hampshire and the other one… Maine, where they barely have minorities. It doesn’t add up to the theory that is being advanced.

the viceroy’s gin

Correct.

Willard pulled about 4M less votes than McCain in 2008. Obama dropped about 8-9M votes from his 2008 totals. If Willard had just matched McCain’s totals, he would have won, given the massive falloff from Obama. He didn’t, which bears witness to his incompetence. Willard is unfit, and no matter how meagerly fit Obama is, he has an advantage over the unfit.

This is a matter of Willard being a flawed, failed candidate, and nothing more.

Curnonsky

No, sorry, this was an election that turned on an issue: what is the relationship between the Government and the citizen to be? And the answer came back: master and serf.

the viceroy’s gin

You’re acting like Willard was advocating something different in regards to what you’re describing. He wasn’t. That’s why he lost. And more importantly, why millions of his potential voters stayed home. They know he’s a doofus and failure.

bill30bill

Bereft of change? Yet soon you’re conceding that the country’s now a center-left one. That’s change my friend. And consider that were it not for artificial redistricting, Repubs would lose the House, too.

the viceroy’s gin

What are you banging on about?

What is this “artificial redistricting” you’re fantasizing over?

Is it the Constitution mandated process that is completed every decade? Is that what you think is behind the Tea Party consolidating it’s massive 2010 gains in the US House?

Sorry, but those gains are there to stay. The Left has jailed itself into it’s urban cells, and will remain there for the next generation, after the Pelosi debacle was exposed in years 2006-2010.

David Lindsay

The American Evangelical Right, which has banged on for years that Obama was a Muslim, has just died. On no theological ground whatever, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association removed the Mormons (whose beliefs are further from mainstream Christianity that Islam is) from the list of cults on its website, because, well, the Republican Party had nominated a Mormon for President, so they must be all right, mustn’t they? American Evangelical Protestantism is about to be started again by a rising generation which recognises quite how decadent that is.

As for the Tea Party, Angus King beat Charlie Summers in Maine. Not only did Elizabeth Warren win back Massachusetts from the man whom, oddly enough, the Tea Party put in, Scott Brown. But, far more strikingly, Richard Mourdock, its instrument for removing the valiant anti-nuclear activist Dick Lugar, lost Indiana to Joe Donnelly, whose victory was really the story of the night: a bit of a Blue Dog, but no Wall Street puppet, and a solidly pro-life, pro-union, immigration-controlling, Second Amendment Democrat.

The Republican Senators who held on against pro-life Democrats were two of the Tea Party’s top targets, Orrin Hatch against Scott Howell in Utah, and Bob Corker against the spitefully reviled Mark Clayton in Tennessee. Neither of those Dems ought to give up. I am given to understand that neither of them is going to. Pennsylvania re-elected the splendid Bob Casey. West Virginia re-elected Joe Manchin, pro-life and pro-coal. In North Dakota, Heidi Heitkamp also won by taking the “all of the above” line on energy, and within that preferring those sources which create employment while securing independence from the Middle East and elsewhere.

Montana re-elected Jon Tester, the pro-logging farmer, stalwart of the Wesleyan Holiness tradition as expressed through the nondenominational ecclesial polity of the Prairie West, defender of traditional marriage, scourge of corporate personhood and other big business scams, advocate of Patriot Act repeal, and opponent of amnesty for illegal immigrants.

And that is just the Senate.

Crude reports of the end of the culture wars, the end of white male America, and what have you, are vast, absurd exaggerations. Rather, one party has become a sect, in which only people who can hold to all fiscal conservatism (generally so called), social conservatism (of a sort), and foreign policy hawkishness are welcome. Those three are in any case logically incompatible with each other, and the failed Republican nominee for President was simply not a social conservative at all. On the contrary, he derived an income from the performance of abortion.

By contrast, the party that continues to accommodate a range of views has become the natural party of government. How could it be otherwise in so vast and diverse an entity as the American Empire?

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_EUA2VSWULS5V2EVXILPFEH4ARA Derek

News just in from my naughty nephew:

A Navy Destroyer stops four Muslims in a row boat, rowing towards
England The captain gets on the loud hailer and shouts

“Ahoy, small craft,
where are you heading?”

One of the Muslims
stands up and shouts,

“We are invading
England.”

The crew of the
Destroyer all start laughing and when the captain finally stops laughing, he
gets back on the loud hailer and says

“Just the four of
you?”

The Muslim stands
up again and shouts,

“No, we’re the last
four. The rest are already there…”

the viceroy’s gin

Well, no doubt you leftists will seize on “race” as explanation for yesterday’s election. Why would this election be any different than anything else? Skin pigmentation seems to be your touchstone.

As George Will said, Obama has the meager mandate of not being Bain Capital. That isn’t going to take him very far, no matter his race, or his supporters’ race.

And I assure you that we conservatives never embraced Willard the Mittens, and his loss is no skin off our nose. For us, it’s an opportunity, a welcome opportunity. Willard didn’t make a conservative case, basically because he’s not a conservative. Now, we conservatives have the field, and we will be making it.

From Will again:

This election was fought over two issues as old as the Republic, the
proper scope and actual competence of government. The president
persuaded — here the popular vote is the decisive datum —
almost exactly half the voters. The argument continues. As Benjamin
Disraeli said, “Finality is not the language of politics.”

bill30bill

George Will discredited himself (not for the first time) by predicting a Romney landslide against all actual evidence. He’s a pompous fraud.

And note that had Romney won with the electoral count Will predicted (something in the order of 320) it would be a landslide, but when Obama wins by that margin it’s a “meager mandate.” This is not an intellectually honest person.

the viceroy’s gin

You can call Will whatever you’d like, but he’s bang on with his commentary. The argument continues, and we’ll see how Mr. Obama holds up to it, and I’d guess he’s going to find the argument quite a bit more distasteful after the 2014 offyear election.

Judy

The same electorate that elected Obama also elected a Republican Congress,so I’m rather sceptical about the supposed demographic reordering of America’s political outlook.

bill30bill

Are you familiar with gerrymandering? Look it up. It’s why the House stayed put and the Senate went more Dem.

the viceroy’s gin

The Senate elections are statewide and are not subject to gerrymandering, matey. And given your ignorance of that fact, it’s not surprising you’re banging on about House gerrymandering.

Baron

and this:

John O’Sullivan, sir, excellent piece, balanced, thought provoking, and truthful to objectivity, you should be a regular contributor, tell that the two misguided Scots in charge of the rag.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_EUA2VSWULS5V2EVXILPFEH4ARA Derek

If you want to see the future of the USA, look to South America’s past.

Danielle

Fantastic article. The US is changing rapidly before our very eyes. The ties that bind the US to the Continent of Europe, especially Britain are rapidly falling away. It’s why journalists are making mistakes trying to compare Britain with the US politically, because the issues in the two Countries are very different and we are heading in opposite directions.

The immigration issue is the most obvious. As this article says the majority of immigrants into the US are latino. They speak Spanish but are Catholic Christians and their children will assimilate into America with its aggressive integration policies. Immigration into the UK is very different, in the majority it is Muslim, mainly from the Indian sub continent and Africa. This poses challenges that the US does not face.

The biggest issue in British politics is class not race. Again an issue that America does not experience. Just as Romney was the wrong type of Republican to win working class whites for the GOP, Cameron is the wrong type of Conservative to win working class voters from Labour. Working class voters in Britain, be they white, black or brown tend to be socially conservative and economically left. The very opposite of the direction Cameron is taking the Tory party.

Baron

good points, Danielle, truly insightful.

http://www.facebook.com/alasdairmurray Alasdair Murray

I have to say, few things make me happier than the anguished whines of angry white Americans that they don’t control the country any more. Your tears taste so sweet.

The simple fact is, the Republican ‘win the whites’ strategy that they’ve been using since Nixon just doesn’t work any more. The Republican party must either accept the reality of modern America, and become like the Democratic party, a party for ALL Americans and not just one racial group; or they will never win a national election again.

(It’s worth noting, this doesn’t mean America is now a permanently leftwing country; non-white Americans aren’t necessarily any more leftwing than white Americans. Plenty of them would vote for a rightwing party that welcomed them; their votes are there for the taking. But when they look at today’s Republican party, they know they have no place there.)

There’s no such thing as a “white country.” Until you go start one somewhere, that is. Good luck!

dalai guevara

This could not be further from the truth:

It is the non-thinking supporter of the rent seekers -who rely on immigration to exploit low wage structures and maximise income from sheds with beds- that needs urgent neurosurgery.

celtthedog

I’m still inclined to think commentators like Steve Sailer, who say Republicans need to increase the white vote are in the main correct. Immigration, affirmative action, Eric Holder, dubious Supreme Court appointees (hello Sonia Sotomayor!), and the like should have been deliberately targeted by Romney. Romney should have directly appealed to white concerns in the manner Obama appealed to ethnic minorities. With only 59% of the white vote, Romney never had a chance.

http://atoryblog.blogspot.com Man in a Shed

The trouble in many countries comes as an new group supplants the existing one. Often civil war or succession is the result.

Wilhelm

Preaching Hatred, the Victims Revolution, the Rise of Identity Studies and the Closing of the Liberal Mind.

I always find it amusing when people say ” It’s the economy stupid.” No, the correct phrase is ” it’s the demographics, stupid.” When the country finally becomes majority black and muslim, there wont be any ” economy ” because the country will be like Zimbabwe.

bill30bill

Okay, you’re definitely a racist.

biggestaspidistra

to be fair, I don’t believe he’s ever denied it.

http://www.coffeehousewall.co.uk/ Coffeehousewall

How is it racist to state what seems a blindingly obvious fact? Take a look at Africa! Better still go visit it. Poverty and corruption everywhere, even when the colony had been an economic success..

Jez

Or visit London….. and take a French phase book!! LOL!

Curnonsky

When 50% of the U.S. population is interested only in extracting maximum government benefits (to be paid for by the other 50%) it is a recipe for economic disaster: business is going to sit on its hands for the next four years, the economy will at best stagnate, at worst slide into a second recession. And with every piece of bad economic news Obama will move to seize more control. But if the world thinks a resurgent American economy will somehow pull Europe out of recession, that is but a pipe dream.

CraigStrachan

This kind of negativity tends not to play so well in the U.S.

Americans are inveterate optimists.

anyfool

It is hard to be optimistic when all about you people do not put anything into the pot.

CraigStrachan

Then shake it up a bit – try putting pot into the people. Like in Colorado and Washington.

DanaWatkins

An increasing large percentage of small business growth comes from minority women. The claim that only white men put anything in the pot is delusion and self-aggrandizement at its worst. Will you go ahead go Galt already. We’ll manage fine without you.

Baron

Craig, congratulations, the man backed by you, the 47%, the 97% has won, let’s just see if his four more years will be as ‘successful’ as his last term was, or if he borrows more than a trillion bucks, see it vanish into thin air, watches on real TV the murder of more than four of his countrymen, does nothing…..

CraigStrachan

You seem a bit less coherent than usual, today, Baron. ‘Sup?

Baron

but you got the message, did you?

bill30bill

It’s not that the last four years were successful (though Obama racked up an extremely impressive list of achievements), it’s that we didn’t need to return to the status quo ante (all Romney was offering).

The fact that you’re still going on about Benghazi, a tragic non-scandal, when you voted for the guy who presided over 9/11 and responded by invading the wrong country, should suggest something to you…but undoubtedly won’t.

Baron

name them, the achievements

also, Baron’ view, if you cared to look around, has been for a long time that it matters not who sits in the White House, getting Romney in would have been of symbolic value only.

also, tell the barbarian when either the messiah, the long haired beauty that often pops up around him said Chris was there running guns to the freedom fighters of the Arab world, the onslaught on the safe house wasn’t by a crowd angry about some Net video clip.

The Republics now stand for white people, America is still 70% white, but you wouldn’t know that from the media.

CraigStrachan

Star Trek is awesome. Gene Roddenberry was a visionary.

http://www.facebook.com/alasdairmurray Alasdair Murray

In other words, the Democrats represent all Americans. The Republicans represent just one fraction of America – angry white people. Sorry, who’s playing ‘identity politics’ and ‘grievance victimhood’ here? It’s not the Democrats.

Perhaps you would care to share more insights about the problematic characteristics of these voting demographics? I suppose you would also consider it wise for the Republicans to be even more explicit in their disdain for these voters in upcoming elections…

bill30bill

Last I checked, the votes of all those groups count just the same as embittered whites (speaking of victimhood). I.e., they’re people, too, and Americans. Try to wrap your tiny brain around that.

The fact that you’re throwing Klingons in with blacks and Hispanics, i.e., they’re all aliens amirite?, strongly suggests that you are a racist. Maybe address that as well.

Romney took ~59% of the white vote, so clearly he doesn’t stand for all whites. What you meant to say is, “The Republics now stand for white people, America is still 70% white, but you wouldn’t know that FROM THE ELECTION.”

http://www.coffeehousewall.co.uk/ Coffeehousewall

Should all votes count the same? It’s been said in the past that when those who receive benefits realise they can vote for them on the back of those providing them then it is the end of a democracy. It looks like much of the West, on such a measure, ceased being democratic some time ago.

Shefali

First off, I think the President should stand for ALL Americans – including white ones – and I also think this partitioning us into groups – African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, etc. – is making our country weaker. We should all just be Americans.

I’m Asian, I voted Romney. Reality is that most Asians have many of the values the Republican party values – strong families, respect for education and hard work, frugality (low debt), etc. While Hispanics have high rates of single motherhood, they do tend to work hard (not a lot of Hispanic pan handlers, and I’ve never seen an Asian one), they tend to be pro-life and Catholic… there are many ways the GOP could reach out to Asians and Hispanics. Even many blacks want stuff like school choice and better jobs and a lot of black churches were upset about the gay marriage stuff. Middle and upper class blacks are going to get hurt by the Obama tax hikes.

Here in Texas, George W. Bush won 44% of the Hispanic vote. I think the GOP tends to win about 40% of the Asian vote nationwide. With a little work, the GOP could increase these percentages – not by appealing to these groups with “special benefits” but simply by explaining GOP positions to them in a more active way. One thing I’ve noticed when you look at historical trends – new immigrants tend to vote heavily Democratic but once they become established over a few generations they don’t – it’s what happened with the Irish and Italians, if you look at long term voting trends.

I think if the GOP made an effort to reach out to middle-class minorities that care about stuff like their home values, their kids’ education, jobs, crime, etc., then they would do well with those groups. Also, part of the reason the Dems are so successful – they make up the majority of teachers, university profs and the media. One trend that is growing is home-schooling. from what I have seen, the home-schoolers I know are more respectful and better mannered, more well read and thoughtful, more independent and better educated. They also don’t have the knee-jerk anti-Christian attitude that it seems the public school system puts forth as “normal”.

anyfool

You are probably right about the browning of the US, and they will demand more benifits as the country becomes less innovative and very much poorer, the reason that the country is flooded with immigrants who as you say are less self reliant is that like in Europe they came not to better the country but to take anything they can for free.
These people have one big problem, the vast wealth and progress in the US and Europe came from the very rapidly shinking proportion of the electorate the white people and judging by the amount of innovation and invention by the browning part there is going to be about as much wealth to share out as the countries they came from.

Marc L

Perhaps. And as long as the argument is presented like that, the actual people who are immigrants and who, you know, read it (I know what you’re thinking, but don’t worry–someone looking for their vote will happily translate it for them) will flee from it into whoever stands before them with outstretched arms.

Steve

Presidents Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and Bush Jnr all increased their majorities in the electoral college when they stood for reelection. Barack Obama broke this pattern. So important points on the changing demographics of the electorate aside this was a narrow victory artificially inflated by the electoral college.

Sadly, the US economy will get worse under Obama and voters will be sick of the Democrats in 2016. Their only chance is to select Hilary and possibly win it on the culture war. That would be a cynical move but it just might work.

Daniel Maris

Can someone please explain that cartoon to me? It looks vaguely obscene…

Tom Paine

Finally after the partisan bollocks for weeks, a thoughtful article on the US election. Well done.

Austin Barry

Blimey, if one our politicians spoke about the ‘browning’ of England he’d be arrested to howls of execration from the elites and cast into pugatory (HM Nick) to be purified.

So three cheers for American Freedom of Speech.

David Lindsay

No, he’d just be laughed out. England is still well over 90 per cent white, as anyone (outside London, at least) can see. Literally see.

Jez

No it’s not Lindsay.

Most immigration from the third world into the UK is to English cities.

The anti- white crusade: e.g. the undermining of values and the traditions of western culture is a global phenomenon.

I’ve seen it mate.

http://www.coffeehousewall.co.uk/ Coffeehousewall

Where I regularly visit in London in 85% Bangladeshi. Hardly a white person to be seen. Likewise Peckham where I was born.

Aidan

You must be very astute. How can you tell apart a Bangladeshi from a Pakistani, or an Indian, or a Sri Lankan or anybody else from that sub-continent is beyond me. Tell me how?

Jez

Aiden.

Are you some kind of imbecile? A question, not a statement.

Come to Bradford and you can tell who is Hindu, Pakistani, Sikh, Bangladeshi, west indian, West African, Somali African, Kosavan, iraqi, Afgan.

Just the same as when you live there, you can tell who is who in East asia; e.g Japanese, korean, han Chinese, Malay, from the Philippines.
Culturally people are different, dress differently and act differently.
Each has physical (whooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaa!!!! I nearly said the ‘R’ word!!!) differences that are abundant in the part of the world that they have come from. So, for instance a Sri Lankan looks different than a Gurkha even though they are roughly from the same sub-continent. Sub Sharan Africans from the West look slightly different than the Eastern Africa, namely Somalia.
I am helping you Aiden here. I am telling you how.

http://www.coffeehousewall.co.uk/ Coffeehousewall

It’s not very complicated at all if you know an area well. And I know this particular area well. In fact the local council also publishes the ethnic mix of the area and it shows that 85% are Bangladeshi and most of the rest are Indian and Pakistani. Almost all British people have moved out. It might as well be part of Bangaldesh.

McQueue

It’s very easy, Aidan – different features, different clothes, different accoutrements – you should get out more – I can also generally recognise Poles as their features are often characteristic. Seriously, can’t you?

88.7% of UK’s population considers itself ‘white’ (with London being the least white at 63.9%)

4.4% of UK’s population considers itself ‘Muslim’.

While the age-distribution shows that there will be an inevitable rise in the non-white & non-christian population in the decades to come, we have a long long long way to go to get anywhere near what is seen today in the US. My bet is that the Tories won’t be as stupid as the Republicans and will adapt to the demographic changes much earlier.

dalai guevara

What? Like the culture imported by the Angles and the Saxons? Where do you start and where do you stop? Skin colour?

Well, the going opinion is that if that is your position, you must be a…make up artist.

anyfool

Like the culture imported by the Angles and the Saxons.
That culture brought something to the table, witness the advances that this country made compared to the rest of world.

dorothy wilson

You should visit Leicester. In particular you should watch the pupils going to school.

CraigStrachan

I find Obama to be the most inspirational political leader since Maggie. (Who I supported many moons ago, when I was still merely British. And I proudly cast my second vote for President Obama yesterday.)

Austin Barry

What has he inspired you to do exactly?

CraigStrachan

To pay more tax in order to help close the deficit.

Baron

the deficit or the debt, you know what you’re talking about, do you? To close the former the whole of the Republic would have to starve for a whole year, and for the latter, every one of you would have labour for just a fraction less than four years, starving, too.

You, my blogging friend, are in for paying not more, but very, very…..much more to get out of the hole. Happy times ahead then, just have a peep at this

Yes, it’s quite a hole. Which is why I found Romney’s tax cut proposals so utterly implausible. But no need to waste another moment’s thought on that guy, now.

I expect we’ll move forward with Simpson/Bowles, or a version thereof, which, plus increased economic growth, will dig us out of the hole over time.
You may bet against America, but I really wouldn’t. In fact, I’m all in.

Emroled

Why would we move forward with Simpson/Bowles NOW? It’s going to be
four more years of more of the same – adding to the deficit and the
debt, blaming whoever the bogeyman is at the time, and claiming that
rich people paying “a little more” will balance everything out.

J.D.

You can tax everyone at 100% of income but it’s not going to have a dent on the debt. But you can get MORE money to Washington without raising taxes. How? If only half the country is employed, that means there are 150 million people who aren’t paying taxes. Maybe they can’t find a job. But if businesses start employing more people, then that means more people are paying taxes and more money is being sent to Washington.

So how to we get businesses to hire more people? We take less of the company’s money so that they can invest in hiring more people. This is something that all businesses want to do because it means more profits in the long run. McDonald’s obviously decided one, lone burger stand wasn’t the limit. But the point is, businesses aren’t going to expand unless they have the money. If the government cuts their taxes and limits the red tape, companies grow, people are hired, taxes are generated, employees spend money on other products, the companies of those products grow, hire people, generate more taxes, and so on. That’s called growth. That’s what Romney wanted to bring us.

Instead, we’ll get more regulation, more taxation, and low growth under Obama.

CraigStrachan

Except it’s been pretty well proven that the Bush tax cuts, for example, did not lead to the sort of job growth you describe.

I think there’s a reasonable case for a reduction in the rate of corporation tax – as long as we make sure corporations actually pay the tax.

However, speaking as some one who has had a fair bit of capital gain income in my time, I could absolutely stand it if the federal rate were raised from 15 to 20 or (gasp) even 25 pc.

Baron

Craig, wake up, the rate would have get close to 100% if the country under the messiah’s leadership is to even dent the debt.

Nope, young sir, you wrong for the guy you’re batting for not only ignored basic math, but didn’t have a platform to start with except for yelling ‘the best is yet to come’. But then, he’s got a solid excuse, he’s a community organiser. You too?

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_EUA2VSWULS5V2EVXILPFEH4ARA Derek

Cast a vote…

Tim

Spectator: That nasty black man needed that good old white man to win.

Fergus Pickering

I wept for joy at Obama’s victory.

EJ

Pathetic. Let’s see the state they’re in in four years time. Wake up.

http://www.coffeehousewall.co.uk/ Coffeehousewall

Let’s see the states they are in. I see the break up of the US in my lifetime as those states which still make money get fed up paying for the influx of immigrants in other states who don’t.